


Night Terrors

by insatiablegaydesire



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Songwriting, a mild tw for dubious consent in dreams. the person dreaming does not consent., a new type of songfic (aka we wrote a song AND a fic), but this is given little detail and treated as respectfully as possible, shark puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24592216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insatiablegaydesire/pseuds/insatiablegaydesire
Summary: Shark Puppy is in DC for a show, sleeping off the travel exhaustion in a hotel with floral wallpaper and the shower pressure of a watering can. Richie is in the shower; Eddie is alone. Eddie has a dream; Eddie writes a song.It began, like always, with him in a whitewashed room, the antiseptic smell of a hospital hitting his nose like a hard-knuckled punch. The walls didn’t look real, the dimensions off just the slightest bit, like he himself was three-dimensional but his surroundings were from a cartoon. A painting hung from the ceiling spun around like a mobile, one that he recognized from a trip he’d taken for his university’s art history class years and years ago. It showed a man and a woman embraced in gold, the light flickering off of their bodies like molten flames. The Kiss. The title was an omen and he knew it.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> The song Night Terrors has been in the works between me (tumblr: @sapphicsansastark) and Lauren (tumblr: @flightlesslovers) for a while now. It means a lot to the both of us and we hope that strong emotional attachment can be felt by all of you. 
> 
> TW for: dubious consent in dreams in which the person dreaming does not necessarily consent to the situations present, aftereffects of compulsory heterosexuality
> 
> Fic/song lyrics by me, (tumblr: @sapphicsansastark)  
> Composition and vocals by Lauren (tumblr: @flightlesslovers)
> 
> [link to the song](https://soundcloud.com/lauren-does-music-things/night-terrors)

The tour bus from last year was unanimously voted way too cramped by all seven members of the band, so Shark Puppy decided that this year they could afford hotel rooms in every city they visited. The key fact that they only required four rooms for them all finally convinced their manager that the expense was worth it. That, and Eddie threatened to strike if he didn’t have his own bathroom at the end of the night so he could shower without Bill pounding on the thin particle board door and screaming that he needed to piss and there was a bee’s nest in the bushes outside. Besides, Maturin knew that if Eddie went on strike the rest of them would follow in suit and then there’d be no band to perform for the masses waiting with tickets in hand. So they got their hotel rooms, and Eddie got to shower in peace.

DC was nice so far. Hotter than Maine, and humid as hell, but the carefully renovated hotel deemed a historical site by the bronze plaque outside by its door had AC systems in every window and sheets that felt cool on the skin during the warm summer nights. The seven of them headed straight there after landing in Dulles, too tired after the late show the previous night and the layover in New York Maturin insisted they take as a tradeoff for the hotel rooms. Well, fuck Maturin. They’d only gotten four hours of sleep and then had to go through eleven hours of travel in cramped waiting rooms and even more cramped plane seats, even the members over six feet in stature relegated to the economy class to save on extra expenses. So Eddie was allowed to be cranky and he was definitely allowed to crash with his boyfriend at five in the afternoon like an eighty-year-old married couple, sleeping through both the night and the day only to get up before their next show. 

Richie was still in the shower, as per Eddie’s request, because the dumbass had ordered a towering platter of nachos during the layover and gotten grease everywhere. It had taken everything in Eddie not to follow him in there and wash his hair himself, like Richie was the mindless dog he chose to act like. Or for other reasons. But every time Eddie moved he could feel his joints ache and his eyes felt like they were spinning even when they were closed, so he collapsed onto the bed first thing after they checked in. Aches settling, he drifted to sleep to the sound of Richie making terrible jokes to himself under the pouring showerhead, his voice too loud and boisterous to ever be drowned out by the mediocre water pressure. The slight fumble of shampoo bottles against the plastic wall lulled him like the white noise of LA, something solid and familiar, enough to break through his irritable mood and let his muscles sink firmly into the mattress. Maybe it was that the sheets were too soft, or that the air smelled of peppermint instead of citrus, like at home. Whatever it was, it slipped into his mind, warm and calming with a quiet malice, and before he knew it, Eddie fell into a dream. One that he’d been having for years, on and off, forgetting about it afterwards until it came crashing back into his mind, its ill intent smiling down at him from behind a matronly mask.

It began, like always, with him in a whitewashed room, the antiseptic smell of a hospital hitting his nose like a hard-knuckled punch. The walls didn’t look real, the dimensions off just the slightest bit, like he himself was three-dimensional but his surroundings were from a cartoon. A painting hung from the ceiling spun around like a mobile, one that he recognized from a trip he’d taken for his university’s art history class years and years ago. It showed a man and a woman embraced in gold, the light flickering off of their bodies like molten flames. _The Kiss_. The title was an omen and he knew it. 

There was no one else in the room, except for a woman in a simple sheath dress, the cloth spilling and falling over her curves like a river cascade. She both did and didn’t have a face.  
He could see it in his peripheral vision, but every time he gazed at her head-on, it disappeared like a bird spooked and flown away. Maybe that made it better. He never knew who she was, never knew if he’d ever see her again after he woke. No discernible features besides her eyes, two emerald gems that trapped his stare and beckoned him closer, waiting and watching, watching and waiting. She was the hunter, and there was no escape.

Across the room, she waited for him, until he walked over to her and fulfilled the dream’s requirement. But he always drew it out, let his gaze hover over her faceless visage. He made sure to mark down every detail before giving in, because he knew ultimately, it would be all he could take away from this moment. Everything about her besides those eyes was grey. Her face a smear of pencil graphite, erased beyond repair. Her dress glistening silver, a cool-toned contrast to the golden Klimt chandelier above. Her legs sickly, white as chalk, the color of fresh ash. She was a corpse, a dead thing abandoned and left for him to find, and he dreaded the part of the dream he knew was next to come.

His body and mind disconnected, with no control over his legs’ movement, he drifted forward and caught her face in his hands.

Eddie woke with a scream. The sheets were bunched like rope around his throat, constricting his neck with an ironclad grip. The pressure only tightened as he thrashed, limbs flailing with blurred recklessness as his panic heightened to a peak. He heard the heavy sound of a doorknob thudding against a wall, and then Richie was beside him, hair dripping and towel haphazardly wrapped around his waist.

“Eds, hey, Eddie, what’s wrong?” His hands were outstretched in a placating manner, seconds away from landing on Eddie’s neck and his 400-thread-count cotton noose.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me!” Eddie finally found his way out of the sheets and he crawled like a feral animal away from those hands, his own fingers gripping the duvet until his back was pressed hard against the headboard, hard knees digging into his empty chest. Breaths came in and out of his mouth with loud, halting gasps. 

Richie just stared at him, slack-jawed, letting his arms fall to his sides. Eddie saw the hurt flash like lightning in his eyes, something nauseatingly golden traveling across the brown, but that didn’t matter right now. He could feel her hands on him, her nails scratching ribbons up his arms, her breath on the back of his neck, and he _couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe._

His hands automatically went to his middle, searching for something that was no longer there. He hadn’t carried an inhaler since he was eighteen, but here he was, still dependent on that quick puff of air like an addict constantly chasing a forgotten high. He wrapped the hem of his shirt around his fingers instead, relished in the feeling of the blood draining from them, the tips turned pure white with time. He deliberately ignored how the color reminded him of the fresh ash from a cooling cigarette. This here, this was something he could control. The memory of her tongue in his mouth didn’t fade, the taste like acid breaking down the inner skin of his cheek, but at least he was breathing. At least he was awake. At least she wasn’t here.

Eddie slowly recovered, leaving Richie at the end of the bed, too scared to come closer for fear that he would simply be pushed away again. Only when the weight of her hand on his cheek lifted did Eddie begin to talk.

“It was... just a dream,” he said weakly, the words falling flat even to his own ears. “A dream, that’s all.”

“Some fucking dream, huh?” Richie asked, shaking his head. A drop of foamy shampoo landed on the sheets at the end of the bed. The water spread out from the cloth, turning the white a damp, darkened grey. 

Eddie shrank into himself, arms hugging his knees. “Shut up.”

“Hey, no, I get it, nightmares can be fucking terrifying. I just...” Richie trailed off, looking around the room as if searching for how to continue in the detail of the rose dappled paper on the walls. His gaze landed back on Eddie, but he wasn’t really all there. Something behind his eyes said more than Richie was willing to say himself. “Are you okay?”

Clearly not. “I’m fine,” Eddie said. “You can touch me now.”

Richie tried to smile at that, a strained pull of the lips not quite reaching his eyes. “No offense, but you screaming bloody murder until I busted my way out of the shower mid-shampoo kinda ruined the mood.”

“Fuck off, you know that’s not what I meant, dickwad.” The attempted smile might’ve failed, but it was easy for them to fall back into familiar banter, quick and heated with the immortal undertone of childhood love. So of course Richie had to go and pedal the conversation backwards for the both of them.

“Really, though,” he said. “What was it about?”

Flashes of grey played through Eddie’s mind like an old black-and-white film reel spun with the palm of a hand, the frames moving faster than the naked eye could naturally follow. “Nothing. Just something fucking stupid.”

“It didn’t sound fucking stupid.” Richie’s voice was soft and wounded, breaking on the last few words.

Eddie sighed, forcing his limbs to loosen a bit so Richie would let the conversation go. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for that,” Richie said quickly. “I’m just worried about you.” He looked down at the shampoo stain, letting the next few words fall out before he could decide to stuff them back in: “This isn’t your first time screaming yourself awake.”

Eddie’s teeth felt like concrete in his mouth, heavy and dense, pressing against the bones of his jaw. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” But both of them knew Richie didn’t believe it.

The first time had been three years ago, back in their home in LA. Eddie had gotten a little too drunk off of red wine, the warm night air urging him on for another glass, and in his dreams the alcohol painted a canvas of greys. She appeared to him like a familiar ghost, a long lost relative whose name was constantly on the tip of his tongue. He had known her his whole life, a woman who didn’t truly exist. Richie had been the one to wake him that night, had shaken him harshly until he opened his eyes and said he’d been screaming in his sleep. Eddie never touched red wine again.

But she still came back, red wine or not. She found him the same year a week before his birthday; after a celebratory dinner with the band; during an afternoon nap by the poolside, which disturbed his next door neighbors so much that they ended up calling the police. He had to explain to the officer that yes, he really was alright, he just had a terrible dream, that’s all. And so he stopped closing his eyes when he went outside, dreading another moment when he’d have to admit once more that his dreams haunted him when they remained wide open.

She even followed him here, 3000 miles across the country, trailing the plane like a thick line of smoke that couldn’t ever be blown away. Eddie felt as if Richie could see the stain of her on his skin, a thick grey sludge dried like clay where she touched. He bet if he opened his mouth, her signature mark would spew out. So it was only fitting that Richie was the one who spoke next.

“If you’re really fine, like, truly, I’m gonna go wash this out of my hair. But it’ll only be five minutes, I swear.”

“It’s fine, Rich,” Eddie said softly. “Go ahead.”

Richie still looked guilty as he walked back into the bathroom, shutting the door with a much more quiet click than when he had opened it before.

Eddie couldn’t bear to see his own reflection in the TV screen hung on the wall directly across the bed, face glaringly gaunt and hung, so he turned onto his side and faced the nightstand. A branded hotel notepad sat on top of the smooth granite stone. He hesitated for a moment, remembering the taste of her on his tongue, then pushed the memory out of his mouth and out of his mind. He picked up the pad, dug for a pen in the outer pocket of his suitcase. He breathed in, listened to the sounds of Richie and water and plastic bottles until they were all he could hear. And then he began to write.

_3 AM, the sheets pulled tight  
choking my breath, that old inhaler fright  
I want to get out  
but I’ve got nowhere to go_

_she’s holding me, but I’m not fighting  
my body is free, her eyes inviting  
I kiss her with tongue  
but it all feels so wrong_

The lines felt like a betrayal to put down on paper, but Eddie put them down all the same. The two verses were a mixture of the first time and the one that still coated the inside of his mouth like a thick dental fluoride paste, all the dreams as one. If he couldn’t tell Richie what he’d been dreaming, he’d show him. It all fell out so easily, the rhymes on the very first try, as if he’d had the song already written, and just held it inside of him until he finally let it out through ink. The words were inscribed on the pale length of his bones, the slight melody on the lining of his stomach. He put it all down, a purge of all the toxins his mother had constantly warned him about growing up. Lyrics were always like that for Eddie. They were a realization, a recognition. Something unspoken that pushed its way out and into the light.

He glanced at his own reflection in the TV screen, pen cap hanging off his bottom lip. He kept his gaze there, studied his own visage for a change. His eyes were wide as always, but they looked tired, hungry, like they hadn’t devoured sight in days. They unfocused as he stared, and he blinked hard to correct his vision. His hair fell limply against the side of his head, but the top was wild, most likely shifted about in his sleep as he fought to escape her touch. The wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes looked more pronounced than usual, the shadows fading into a darkened slate grey even in the golden yellow lamp-light. Something about those shadows called out to him, taunted him. Before he looked away, he had the next three lines.

_why is this happening?  
is this just a dream?  
or am I so sick and perverted that I want to hurt until I scream?_

Eddie heard a heavy thud from the bathroom, probably Richie dropping another bottle yet again, which was only confirmed when he heard a resounding yelp echoing off the walls of the room. He couldn’t help but laugh, drawn out of his own mind by the interruption, but his voice faded quick as a blown-out match when the rough edge of the paper shifted against his leg. Reality came back to him in a rushing greywater flood. All of the feelings of that moment wrapped up into one, an amalgamation of fear and joy and sadness and surprise. He felt sick to his stomach as he realized what he needed to write next.

_I’m afraid of sleep  
like I was afraid of you  
of what it might mean  
of what I might do  
I dread those closed eyes  
and the moonlight outside  
so I stay up until the sunrise  
I stay up until those tears dry_

The tears were coming now, wet and thick, dripping onto the cheap paper with every line he wrote. But he kept on writing, the need taking over as soon as he granted it permission. Because it had asked for permission. In his dreams, his legs were never so kind.

_6 AM, I wake with a shout  
you cling to me, try to figure me out  
but I won’t tell you  
so please stop your asking_

_she haunts me by day, by my coffee mug  
holds my face in her hands, slips me that sugary drug  
I open my mouth  
I’m not sure what else to do_

Eddie swallowed down a sob, felt it travel harshly down his throat until it landed in his stomach like a dense granite stone. He hoped Richie couldn’t hear it from where he was, that he wouldn’t have to explain himself for the second time that night. Even with these words at hand, he wasn’t quite sure he’d be able to.

_why is this happening?  
is this just a dream?  
or am I so sick and perverted that I want to hurt until I scream?_

_I’m afraid of sleep  
like I was afraid of you  
of what it might mean  
of what I might do  
I dread those closed eyes  
and the moonlight outside  
so I stay up until the sunrise  
I stay up until those tears dry_

The pen stopped, Eddie stopping with it. All at once he wanted to throw it across the room. It wasn’t this unknown woman in his dream that he was mad at; it was himself. Because didn’t he know himself? After years of discovery and shame, the pitch darkness that the closet held, didn’t he know who he was? And if he knew, then why couldn’t he make her leave?

_I know who I am  
but at night I forget  
she climbs into my mind  
and into our bed  
and oh, sweet darling, I want you to know  
I’m so sorry for her ghost_

He knew who he was. She knew too. She just loved to watch him suffer, to see him fall from a single touch of her lips. And without fail, he fell every time.

_I’m afraid of sleep  
like I was afraid of you  
of what it might mean  
of what I might do  
I dread those closed eyes  
and the moonlight outside  
so I stay up until the sunrise  
I stay up until those tears dry_

Suddenly, the faceless woman grew features of her own. She was dozens of women at once, every single one he’d told himself in the past that he was attracted to, that he told others he desired. His lies followed him here, into his dreams, where he couldn’t deny them anymore. The woman in grey was his old girlfriend Myra, his childhood crush Pamela Anderson, and for one terrifying millisecond, a younger version of his own mother, vitriolic grimace and all.

_I’m afraid of dreams  
like I was afraid of her  
of what she deemed clean  
of what she preferred  
I dread those closed eyes  
and the moonlight outside  
so I stay up until the sunrise  
I stay up until those tears dry_

“Eddie?”

Eddie looked up from the paper, the tears in his eyes blurring his sight, but there was no mistaking Richie in front of him, or the look of concern on his face, magnified a hundred times over by his thick-lensed glasses.

“Hey, baby, c’mon, it’s alright. C’mere. It’s alright. It’s just you and me, baby. It’s alright.”

Richie’s voice fell to a warm, soothing whisper, the sound of a deep plum purple. It dripped in sweetness, and Eddie chased the taste with every word, hoping it would dispel the acidic grey on his tongue. He slid the paper and pen under the pillowcase as Richie took him into his arms, telling himself he’d show Richie the words another time. As he cried out into Richie’s shoulder, ruining his freshly clean shirt, listening to the violet whispers of the man he loved more than he thought he ever could, he knew what he’d write at the bottom of that paper before the end of the night. 

_until you wake by my side  
and tell me “baby it’s alright  
there’s no woman here tonight  
just you and me until we die”_

_and baby that becomes my lullaby_


End file.
